


proserpine

by jesterwrites



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Inspired by Poetry, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Meditation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3424682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterwrites/pseuds/jesterwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights John comes back to the flat after work and finds Sherlock alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	proserpine

 

“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”   
                                                                                                                      ― Stephen King

*

Some nights John comes back to the flat after work and finds Sherlock alone.   
Not physically, of course, Mrs. Hudson is just downstairs, but in every other way, Sherlock is entirely by himself. He'll be sitting in his chair by the dark, unlit fireplace or sprawled across the couch, eyes shut and hands pressed close together beneath his chin. 

Sometimes, Sherlock will have nicotine patches scattered across his skin and John can only imagine what he's seeing behind his closed eyes. 

His eyes always stay shut and he never speaks or moves or reacts to anything John says or does, leaving John wondering if his flatmate  even knows that he's there. John can make tea or talk on the phone as loudly as he wants- hell, a marching band probably wouldn't shake Sherlock back to reality.

There's a part of John that worries about Sherlock's forced isolation, because he's no psychologist but he's fairly sure mental quarantine classifies as unhealthy. But then again, this is Sherlock and nearly everything Sherlock does is at least a little bit unhealthy, so John lets these nights go as just another Sherlockian quirk that wasn't listed in the job description of Living With Sherlock Holmes.

But one night it's different. John comes home, sees Sherlock unmoving on the couch, and goes about his evening as he usually does when the detective locks himself in his mind palace.

Once he's settled in for the night he sits opposite Sherlock's silent form and watches the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the way passing cars outside flicker streetlamp shadows across Sherlock's face, the way his hair fans slightly around his face where his head meets the couch cushion.

He realizes that he's staring at Sherlock in a way he probably shouldn't, and so he gets up to go to bed.

As he crosses the room, though, something unexpected happens.

*

Sherlock, separated as he may be from the world, still subconsciously registers the fact that John is home, but, like most nights, he ignores it and continues his pseudo-sleep.

He uses the emptiness of meditation to silence the constant chaos of his mind; sometimes he really envies John, unobservant as he is, and his practically empty head.

Tonight, while Sherlock floats in his own perfect void, his mind is still hearing and feeling the real world: hearing John go about his nightly rituals, culminating in John sitting down near him and.... that's it.

Sherlock can't hear John doing anything, he senses no movement. His mind begins to analyze the situation, eliminating possible outcomes until he comes to a conclusion that both satisfies and confuses him.

John is watching him. 

Sherlock is awake now, but he stays perfectly still and keeps his eyes shut, because at some point John is going to leave and he can go  back to the nice quiet empty of nothingness.

Time seems to drag. He can feel the way his lungs expand and deflate as he breathes,  he knows that John is watching the slight movement, and he begins to feel oddly self-conscious.

Eventually Sherlock hears the creak of the floor as John stands and begins to leave the room.

Suddenly something seems to rise in him, a flood of things that he needs to say that die in his throat before he can speak, a desperate want to share his void with someone else, words flashing behind his eyes,  but only one thing comes out, only a single phrase that forms in his lungs, not his throat, and passes his dry lips without his permission.

*

Sherlock speaks, and John stops to listen.

*

"Though one were strong as seven,    
  he too with death shall dwell,   
nor wake with wings in heaven,   
  nor weep with pain in hell,    
  though one were fair as roses,    
  his beauty clouds and closes,   
  and well though love reposes,   
  in the end it is not well."

*

John is entirely unsure of what to do. Sherlock has broken his nightly vow of silence for the first time, an occurrence as disorienting as the content of his speech. It was poetry, obviously, but he'd never heard it before. Turning back to glance at Sherlock once more, the detective seemed to have returned to his meditative state. 

He decided it would be best to leave him be and think about this in the morning.

*

Sherlock didn't hear John leave the room. He had fallen asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The poetry that Sherlock recites is a stanza from The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne.  
> I don't own Sherlock or the poem, obviously.


End file.
